Issue 38 - November 2007

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	Issue 38 - November 2007



	As I have discussed before in this column (June 2007, Issue 36), Rich Internet Applications have become a particularly competitive area of late with Microsoft and Adobe both fielding some powerful solutions in their Silverlight and Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) technologies. I and a number of other reporters were privileged to spend some time with Adobe’s Chief Software Architect Kevin Lynch recently, the fruits of which you can read on page 28. As Lynch explains, the AIR runtime allows applications built using Flash, PDF and Web technologies to be downloaded from the Internet and run directly on the desktop. Silverlight, by contrast, runs applications built using Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and .NET technologies within the Web browser. Otherwise they are fairly similar, running on both Windows and Mac OS X with Linux versions to come (through the open source ‘Moonlight’ project in the case of Silverlight). Both also allow applications to access data stored on the user’s hard disk. In the case of AIR, applications appear to be able to access the local file system with all the rights of a full-blown Win32 application. Users are warned of the implications when they download such an application but are given a simple choice of ‘install’ or ‘cancel’. Silverlight 1.1 (currently in alpha) also allows applications to read and write files to the hard disk, but only within an Isolated Storage area unique to each application. In addition applications can pop up a File Open dialog which allows the user to pass it a file from the hard disk, but at no time does the application have any idea where the data is actually stored. This is an important difference. A Silverlight 1.1 application would not be able to search through your file system for email addresses or passwords. An AIR application presumably could. It is very early days yet, but it will be interesting to see how the more secure model of Silverlight limits the capabilities of its applications in contrast to AIR. The other important difference is of course that Silverlight applications run within the browser whereas AIR applications run directly on the desktop. However, Silverlight applications are essentially .NET applications, and .NET applications are perfectly capable of running on the desktop (indeed Isolated Storage is a .NET 3.0 technology), so presumably it would be fairly trivial for Microsoft to put together a variation of Silverlight which allowed applications to be run directly from the desktop. Such a technology would of course compete directly with AIR. Perhaps the interesting question is why Microsoft shows no sign (as yet) of doing so.

News


	Issue 38 News



	Visual Studio 2008 due for imminent release Sticking to the Rails Thanks for the memory Macrovision End of Life announcement Team Developer Styling Long-awaited RoboHelp update Design once style everywhere Geared up for Eclipse Full refresh for Altova Remote control firewall Licence activation services Automate your business graphics Screencasts without the couch Plug into the power of PDF Protect your licences Obfuscation for SLP » Latest news

Articles



	Intellectual property

		Microsoft has released a new service designed to help you protect your intellectual property. Cath Everett finds out what it can do for you.



	Power down

		Simon Williams looks at the steps you can take to reduce the energy consumption in your data centres and offices and save money at the same time.



	The front line

		The threat to your systems from hackers, virus writers and malware authors has never been greater. Kay Ewbank discusses solutions with McAfee, Symantec, CA and Microsoft.



	AIRborne

		Matt Nicholson reports from Adobe’s San Francisco office on AIR, Flex Builder, Flash Player and associated technologies.



	Team effort

		Tim Anderson gets a real-world perspective on Visual Studio Team System from early adopters Unipower.



	A Hosted Solution

		Grey Matter introduces a hosted solution to your Software Asset Management problems.



	And Another Thing

		Virtualisation could change the business of computing forever. Jon Honeyball explores the implications.



	Inside O-Zone

		Graham Keitch finds out what Oracle Application Express can do for both developers and end users.


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